DETROIT, MI – President Barack Obama said Tuesday he believes lightweight materials are the future for automotive production and a variety of other uses, and said he sees no reason the U.S. should not be a global leader on this front.

To that end, the president announced that Canton Township in metro Detroit would be the site of what the White House called the Lightweight and Modern Metals Innovation Institute, or LM3I Institute.

Opening this spring, the technology hub is targeted to ultimately create up to 10,000 jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, with a bulk of the new positions in Michigan and Ohio. It is not immediately clear what proportion of the new jobs will be in the Detroit area.

“We believe there’s going to be an incredible demand for these metals … and we want to make sure they’re made right here in America,” Obama said Tuesday from the White House in remarks that were live streamed on the internet.

The White House also noted earlier in a Tuesday release that lightweight steels are “helping American automakers produce cars more fuel efficient than ever before – with some cars today already up to 39% lighter and just as strong.” Obama, too, said Tuesday afternoon that modern day metals can make cars lighter and more fuel efficient while still being safer to drive.

Without mentioning the car maker by name, the Obama administration also highlighted Ford Motor Company’s 2015 F-150, which debuted at the Detroit auto show in January with an aluminum body that is 700 lbs lighter than its predecessors.

“And that’s just one incredible thing these new metals can do,” Obama said Tuesday of more efficient automobiles, before pointing toward light materials’ use for army vehicles, more advanced prosthetic limbs and wind turbines that generate more power at less cost.

Obama acknowledged that with the rise of globalization and cheap labor abroad, not all manufacturing jobs lost during the past few decades would be returning stateside. “Folks caught up to us, and in some cases, just copied what we we're doing with lower wages,” he said.

Still, he highlighted what he said was his administration’s ability to create 125,000 jobs with the bailout of the American auto industry. He also repeated a figure cited by the White House Tuesday morning that said manufacturers have added 622,000 jobs to the economy since 2010. Of those, more than 80,000 have been added over the past four months.

But the importance of the innovation hub goes beyond manufacturing and seeks to aid entire supply chains, Obama noted. An auto manufacturing plant, for example, is just one piece of an economic ecosystem that includes suppliers, servicers, advertising, architects, designers and others, the president said. The innovation hubs are meant to have a ripple effect across all these related sectors, adding both consumer demand and additional labor.

They are to do this by bringing together top companies with educational institutions, as well as non-profits, in figuring out the most efficient way products can be made and brought to market. “Then make sure the research is translated into real world projects made by Americans,” Obama said.

For the Canton Township hub, 60 companies, universities and non-profits are involved. The full list of participants can be seen below.

The exact location of the metro Detroit hub remains unclear. On Monday, Canton Township Supervisor Phil LaJoy said an exact spot was still not known to him, as he prepared to head to Washington, D.C. to be on hand for the president’s announcement. Regardless, LaJoy said the township is “tremendously excited.”

The Detroit-area hub was announced alongside a digital and design manufacturing innovation institute in Chicago. During his State of the Union Address in January, Obama announced the first official manufacturing innovation institute in Raleigh, N.C., where the Department of Energy is leading a next-generation power electronics production and education facility.

It follows a pilot program for these kinds of “teaching factories” in Youngstown, Ohio, launched in 2013.

The hubs are modeled on a similar strategy by European manufacturing powerhouse Germany. “I’m really excited about these four hubs, the only problem is, Germany has 60 of them,” Obama said.

Obama said that his ultimate goal of having a network of 45 of them across the country can only be done with the help of a not-always-cooperative Congress. The White House plans to launch four more before the end of the year. After that, it will need legislative help for additional funding.

For the Detroit-area innovation hub, which has also been called the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute, $140 million is coming from federal funds alongside an equal amount promised from local private sector leaders.

The full breakdown of the consortium participating in the Detroit-area hub is as follows:

9 Universities and Labs: Colorado School of Mines, Michigan State University, Michigan Tech University, The Ohio State University, University of Kentucky, University of Michigan, University of Notre Dame, University of Tennessee, Wayne State University